I had a L5-s1 anterior posterior fusion with instrumentation 20 months ago. I had zero back pain for 1 year after recovering. I now am having back pain. Surgeon wants to remove hardware. In addition to normal fusion with cage and bone graft, the surgeon tried to fuse my facet joints with bone fragments. Is this unusual? It is unclear whether facets have fused so i am nervous to have hardware removed. Any insight?